Sunday, January 19, 2014

Lest we forget: On January 13, 1953, an article
appeared in Pravda, titled, “Vicious
Spies and Killers Passing Themselves off as Doctors and Professors.” The
newspaper item said that a group of the country’s most eminent doctors---all of
them Jewish---had allegedly been plotting to poison Stalin and other members of
the Soviet leadership. The accusations were intended to serve as a prelude to a
vast purge of Soviet Jews. Boxcars were already in place at train stations
throughout Western Russia to deport Jews to Siberia Fortunately, Stalin died on
March 5, a few days before the trail was to start. A month after his death
Pravda announced that the doctors were innocent.

For more on this and two chapters on Russia today,
check out my “The Scattered Tribe, Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to
Tahiti & Beyond,” (Globe Pequot Press).http://amzn.to/J3Z47T

About Me

Ben G. Frank , author, journalist, is considered one of this country’s most distinguished travel writers and commentators on Jewish communities around the world. He is the author of the just-published “The Scattered Tribe: Traveling the Diaspora from Cuba to India to Tahiti & Beyond,” (Globe Pequot Press) as well as “A Travel Guide to Jewish Europe,3rd edition,” “A Travel Guide to Jewish Russia & Ukraine, and “A Travel Guide to the Jewish Caribbean and South America.” A former newspaper reporter, he has given talks at book fairs, and his many lectures, including the Museum of the City of New York and the 92nd st. Y. His books have been cited and reviewed in The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the Miami Herald and he has appeared on hundreds of radio and tv talkshows. A public relations person, he is president of the Frank Promotion Corp. a public relations firm, specializing in radio-tv talkshows. He is a B.A. cum laude graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and an M.A. graduate of the Center of Israel and Jewish Studies, Columbia University. He lives with his wife in Palm Beach County, FL.